That’s what my doctor did- mine was 19. But I’m rather sure I’ve never been seen by you, Dr. Q.
They’re not being diagnosed, which is the problem.
If someone is convinced they have a deficiency, then why waste time and money going to a doctor? Jump directly to the “cure”.
A whole lot of people really are vitamin D deficient much of the year, though. North of about Boston there isn’t strong enough sunlight for our bodies to produce any between November and March.
My PCP started routinely testing everyone a few years back and told me that many people in our area are deficient. My levels were about half of where they should be, so he put me on a high-dose Rx supplement for 12 weeks and then told me to take OTC supplements once I got within the normal range. I take 5,000 IU/day, which keeps me smack in the middle of normal.
Osteoporosis runs all over my mom’s side of the family. We used to be the same height, and now at 74 she is a good 3 inches shorter. My grandmother shrank even more than that before she died. I can’t help but wonder whether that would be the case if we all got enough Vitamin D.
Anecdotally related (or not, the jury is still out, but there’s a lot of correlation) to my Multiple Sclerosis, I have chronically low vitamin D and B12 levels and have to supplement. My only recommendation if that if you’ve been diagnosed with low vitamin D through bloodwork from your doctor, ask them to kindly prescribe you D2 supplements instead of picking up mega doses of OTC D3. D2 is absorbed better by the body, can come in a higher concentration via prescription supplements, costs pennies, and isn’t as likely to end up giving you kidney stones.
That’s what happened to me - I was taking massive doses of D3 which also aids in calcium absorption in normal, healthy people. Only problem with that is that my blood calcium levels were normal to great, no issues there. So now I’m absorbing more! And my poor kidneys are filtering extra, and over time it got to be too much. All in all, I was able to raise my blood vitamin D count much more quickly and efficiently with prescription D2 supplements anyway. My new normal is now about 16-17, rather than the 5ish I used to average.
I’m almost 74 and, though I don’t have osteoporosis, I’ve lost 1.5 inches in height.
My Vitamin D levels were the lowest my PCP had ever seen, so I got put on D. I got the megadose once week for a while, and as my levels improved, he told me to switch to the non-prescription once a day for maintenance–as well as to go outside and get at least 10 - 15 minutes of sun exposure per day.
There’s also the issue of there being a debate about what is actually the normal levels for Vitamin D. I’ve seen arguments that the current recommended levels are too low. I’ve seen recommendations as high as 60 instead of 20, though I suspect that may be an overton window situation.
If you are like me, you’re likely not feeling all that great lately, being tired with muscle aches and such. The Vitamin D can really help–though it takes a bit of time.
Good points.
Doctors also suggest B12 for Vegans and for the elderly, and for the elderly try sublingual.
Calcium and Magnesium, while technically not “vitamins” are also commonly short in American diets.
Here are the most common:
Yup. A good recent skeptical review. (Best evidence is the MS stuff referenced above.)
I make no comment about the op and believe that true deficiency should be treated, but I suspect that some of what is going on that a symptom is being mistaken for a cause in some cases. The correlation of low vitamin D with a variety of conditions is being touted as evidence that low vitamin D is causative of those conditions but there is some reason to believe that the causation is reverse.
Interesting animal model. Rats who were artificially given diabetes and kept sedentary had low vitamin D levels result. Interestingly that vitamin D reduction caused by the induced DM was much less in rats that had moderate exercise (swimming).
On the human side those who exercise are less likely to have vitamin D and better cardiorespiratory fitness is correlated with higher vitamin D. Exercise during pregnancy results in higher vitamin D levels whether they exercised outdoors or indoors. (RCT)
(Bolding mine.)
I am aware of lots of people who have been diagnosed with vitamin D deficiency and who are taking absurd doses of supplemental vitamin D without budging their blood levels.
I wouldn’t tell anyone to not take vitamin D advised by their health care professional but DO also start a regular exercise program, whether or not that means exercising in the sunlight some. My, so far with only a little to support it, hypothesis is that sedentary lifestyles and subclinical insulin resistance (and other inflammatory conditions) are even more to blame for endemic low vitamin D levels than lack of sunlight is, and that the causation goes more from those conditions to the low D than the other way around.
Anecdotally, my doc has gotten on me about taking Vitamin D supplements. He’d said (IIRC) that Vitamin D deficiency is really quite common here in Australia - possibly due to a very effective sunblock drive in various PSAs.*
*Nothing sinister about that - melanoma is worse than a vitamin deficiency, after all!
When I asked to have my vitamin D levels tested a couple of years ago, my level was 5. :eek: My GP was like, “y’know, we don’t really hear much about rickets these days, but…” 
Needless to say I take supplements. And lemme tell you, the improvement was FAST and noticable. So much more energy!
Ye; I work nights and frankly unless it’s -10 out would rather sit be in the shade. Especially here in Tucson most of the year. I was so unsurprised to be Vitamin D deficient. What you said you prescribe is what I was prescribed.
You’d think you’d get the occasional vegatarian/vegan who needs B12 even in your practice.
Personally, I get lots of outside exercise (two or three hours/day, no sunscreen) and, while I haven’t had any tests, I expect my D level to be way up there. In winter, I’m sure it comes down and I should consider a supplement then.
OTOH, I’m a vegetarian, and take a small amount of B12. I do consume milk and yoghurt, but recently I cut back on my yoghurt consumption to only one or two bowls/day. So just to be sure, I got some liquid B12 supplement. Pretty much all B12 supplements have 1000 mcg (or more) per pill, which is way above the RDA of about 2 mcg, and even well above the recommended supplement of 1 to 25 mcg. This one I got says to take 25 drops to get that 1000 mcg, but I only take about 3 or 4 drops. It’s probably still more than I need.
I do check b12 levels regularly in folks on such diets; even then I rarely see low levels, even if they’re not supplementing.
I am not “anti-supplement”, but think that many supplements are hyped for benefits they have not been shown to convey, and can even potentially increase cancer risk (as in the case of some antioxidants).
It’s a different situation if a physician has good grounds for recommending supplementation and a quality product is used.
You can overdo vitamin D, as a certain alt med guru found out.
Same here but swap out a cardiologist for the naturalist. Under a doctors advice for specific reasons vitamins are like any other medication. Under the advice of some odd person who says “B12 made me a totally new man and you MUST take it too” I call BS.
Have you noticed any effect on the restless leg syndrome?
Can you reduce my ignorance please?
Why the preference for D2 in your initial phase?
And how often are you seeing persistently low levels despite those levels of replacement? When you do see it, why do you think it happens?
Thanks.
Force of habit, In the old days, the use of the hi dose D2 version weekly was recommended to “replenish the deficit” more effectively with a shift to low dose D2 or D3 daily after 8-12 weekly doses. These days, there’s some evidence that D3 would work better for replenishing, but most of that info was gleaned from weekly or even monthly hi dose regimens, and no one has ascertained whether it makes a clinical difference.
So in short, I do it the way I learned it as a resident in the early 80’s and there’s not been a strong enough consensus on new recommendations to get me to change old habits.
I’ve seen a LOT of folks that are hard to replenish. They come in at levels of 6 or less, and it may take 18 weeks of high dose to get them near normal. I don’t know why. But once replenished, they seem to be maintained well on 2000 of D3 daily.
In our setting it’s tough to encourage them to get more sunlight (many of our prisons are closer to the north pole than the equator, and many of my patients have a lot of melanin to prevent decent sunlight absorption, and they hardly get to go outside anyway) so once they’re topped off, it’s easier to maintain them on daily doses rather than risk recurrence.
The google also says the earth is flat.
heck… the google ALSO says the Earth is “Falt” (About 2 110 000 results)
So the earth must be “falt”. After all, there are more than two million hits for a search on the exact phrase “falt earth”
One needs to apply a teensy bit of thought to any result the internet gives you. Not all results are trustworthy.